0. Prologue—or the woman I was ten minutes ago
Ten p.m., a back alley in Itaewon. Ji-hoon smiled low and said,
“Hye-jin, the guy who saw your photo says you’re exactly his type.”
Across from me, two unfamiliar men swept their eyes over my body like lightning. My bare calves below the shorts, the blouse that revealed the hollow between my breasts, the curve of my neck Ji-hoon had marked the night before.
In that instant my breath rose to the roof of my mouth.
Why?
1. Se-eun becomes herself in the pojang-macha
Thirty-two, Se-eun shivered at her boyfriend Joon-soo’s casual remark.
“Min-seok says he wants to see you—let’s all go together.”
Min-seok was Joon-soo’s best friend and, until last year, the man who had pushed and pulled at the edges of Se-eun’s life.
In the pojang-macha, Min-seok lifted a glass and grinned.
“Still beautiful. Joon-soo, you really landed something special.”
Joon-soo clamped a possessive hand around Se-eun’s waist.
She couldn’t quell the lukewarm heat spreading between her thighs. Every time Min-seok’s gaze sliced through her like a blade, she felt herself promoted to the rank of “Joon-soo’s woman.”
A brutal engraving.
Look at me hotter.
2. Yoon-ah proves her present in her ex’s despair
Do-hyun smiled faintly.
“Jin-soo’s coming tonight too. You used to like him, remember?”
Jin-soo—her ex. A year since the breakup; she had feared any contact. Yet Do-hyun wanted to witness that very desire.
After the third round, Do-hyun suddenly took her hand.
“Can I kiss you here?”
The moment Jin-soo set his glass down, his eyes wavered.
Yoon-ah met Do-hyun’s gaze and kissed him.
In that tableau, she received the most dramatic proof that she belonged to Do-hyun—inside Jin-soo’s despair.
Yes. The me without you does not exist.
3. The psychology books call this sign-value
An object’s worth soars only when someone else wants it.
The instant my lover displays me, I am converted into scarcity.
We live as each other’s commodities.
When another wants you, only then do I truly possess you.
A glittering cage, a beautiful chain.
So—do you grip me tighter, terrified I might slip through another’s fingers?
Or can you not imagine me without you, and therefore keep testing me, endlessly?